Why Fairfield is One of Connecticut’s Best Places to Live – and Do Business
The Town of Fairfield, Connecticut is located in Fairfield County, along the shoreline of the Long Island Sound, between the cities of Bridgeport and Stamford. Fairfield is a thriving southern New England town of approximately 61,000 residents that is consistently named by Money Magazine as one of the best places to live in the State of Connecticut.
Says Mark S. Barnhart, Fairfield’s Director of Community & Economic Development: “You can access five international airports within a two-hour drive of the town. We find a lot of companies with European roots are locating in this area, including Fairfield, because it does provide convenient travel to and from Europe from the airports in the area.”
Fairfield is considered to be one of Connecticut’s best places to live because of its transportation, and a range of lifestyles and demographics can support your business and provide housing and living opportunities to employers.
Barnhart explains that, currently, about ten percent of the town’s tax base comes from its commercial sector. Two of its largest employers are the Bigelow Tea Company, which has its headquarters in town, and RBC Heim, a manufacturer of aerospace and other industrial applications. “The major sectors, I call ‘eds, meds, and beds,” he quips. “We have two universities here, Sacred Heart University and Fairfield University, both of which are growing and making significant investments in their on-campus facilities and infrastructure. Sacred Heart has just recently opened an innovation center in partnership with Verizon to facilitate entrepreneurship and to grow new small businesses in the area. It’s the first partnership that Verizon has participated in on an on-campus facility, so we have great hopes for that partnership.”
Both universities are growing at a time when, across the country, the college-age population is in decline and college enrollment is following that trend. In Fairfield, both universities are having building sprees, which is a big boon to to the Town’s building permit fees because they’ve been adding various business schools, nursing schools, as well as dorms on campus.
Mark Barnhart: “The two universities obviously add to the cultural vibrancy of the entire region, and contribute to one of our strengths – our talented workforce. It provides a pipeline to young talent coming out of the universities. You’ll find more finance, IT, and management professionals per capita in Fairfield than you will in many larger metropolitan areas and cities; 62 percent of our population has a college or advanced degrees. So, it’s a highly educated and talented workforce.”
The Town of Fairfield has a number of large projects going on, including a development project near the Fairfield Metro Center, which opened in December 2011, and is one of the town’s three commuter rail stops on the Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven Line. Said Mr. Barnhart: “We just completed a mixed-use project in that area,” he reports. “101 new residential units over 15,000-sq.-ft. of retail and there’s a second phase currently under construction – 160 units over about 20,000-sq.ft of retail/commercial space with structured parking. The Fairfield Metro Center site, itself, is being planned for about a 350-unit residential, mixed-use development with a hotel and office, as well as ancillary retail on a 12-acre site. So there’s great potential around the Metro Center train station.” In addition, at the Downtown Fairfield station, which also serves as a transfer point for the Fairfield University Shuttle, 200 new residential units are being constructed on a two-acre site. “You can walk out of your apartment and get to the train station in a matter of minutes.”
“Because we’re a coastal community, we’re looking at issues related to resiliency and sea-level rise,” Barnhart adds. “And we’ve accessed federal and state grants to facilitate that work. We’ve looked at our downtown core, particularly as it relates to the implementation of green infrastructure, and we have rather stringent requirements in place to provide for better stormwater retention. And we just completed a project downtown to provide additional capacity to retain water, so as to help alleviate some local flooding. We’re seeing more flooding, both in terms of frequency and intensity, so we’re trying to stay ahead of that, as well.”
Access to all forms of transportation, a focus on education, a plethora of housing options, an abundance of city amenities amidst natural beauty, and a dedication to a sustainable lifestyle – no wonder the Town of Fairfield is considered “the best place to live.”
Contact:
Mark Barnhart
Director, Office of Community & Economic Development
mbarnhart@fairfieldct.org
The Office of Community & Economic Development works to support the local business community and to encourage economic development in Fairfield. Let us know how we can help your business prosper and grow in Fairfield.